The Gift
by Lils
Summary: Mary was buried on John’s birthday. He never went to her funeral. Much to the shock and outrage of her family, John left Sam and Dean in the care of his inlaws twenty minutes before the funeral began and returned to their home. One shot.


Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural.

_The Gift_

Mary was buried on John's birthday. He never went to her funeral. Much to the shock and outrage of her family, John left Sam and Dean in the care of his in-laws twenty minutes before the funeral began and returned to their home for the first time since the fire. He hadn't intended to actually miss the funeral, but he didn't mind. Burying an empty box in honor of his dead wife was not the way he wanted to spend his birthday

He gazed upon the charred remains of the home he had bought with Mary, wondering whether or not to go inside. Grief, fear and confusion rose inside of him as he thought of what he had seen that night. He opened the door.

The kitchen and living room remained unscathed, everything exactly as it had been the night of the fire. The unwashed dishes were lying in the sink, the TV was still playing quietly, Dean's piles of toys were still scattered across the floors of the kitchen and living room. If it weren't for the partially burnt staircase and the lingering smell of acrid smoke, no one would ever be able to tell that the fire had occurred.

John placed a foot on a charred stair. It creaked ominously. Every one of his instincts was telling him to stay instead of testing the unstable upstairs. But John slowly proceeded up the stairs anyway. He wandered from room to room, taking in all of the destruction, silently hoping the flimsy floor would support his weight. The charred beds, the piles of ash that used to be toys. Everything seemed to be black, except for a few select objects which miraculously escaped burning.

John methodically began picking up all that was left unharmed. A coloring book of Dean's, a picture of John and Mary shortly after they had bought the house. He dropped both to the floor a glint of a light metallic blue caught his eyes from the closet in their bedroom. A gift wrapped in blue paper covered with black scorch marks. John picked up the card attached and read the inscription.

_To John,_

_So you can write down all of your wonderful thoughts and I'll finally know what you're thinking about._

_All my love,_

_Mary_

John tore the blue paper off to reveal a brown journal. He smiled for the first time in days as he remembered a conversation he'd had with Mary a few days before the fire.

"_You look…" _

"_Good?" _

"_Like you're lost in your thoughts." _

"_No."_

"_What are you thinking about?"_

"_Nothing really."_

"_You won't say anything?"_

"_Nothing to say."_

John picked up the coloring book and photo again, along with the journal. The three things in the entire upstairs that had survived the fire. John walked out of the room and down the rickety and charred staircase. He focused on nothing else but the door leading the way out. John instinctively knew that he would never willingly live in the house again. He closed his eyes and effortlessly guided himself out the front door. He fumbled with the doorknob for a second, but finally made it outside.

"John Winchester!" a voice screeched. John's eyes shot open as he recognized the voice as his mother-in-law's. She had a firm grip on Dean's hand who was struggling against her while she tightly held a sleeping Sammy in her arms. He stared at her in confusion for a few seconds until he understood. He had missed Mary's funeral. It didn't bother him very much. It was not the way wanted to spend his birthday.

They stared at each other in silence for a few seconds, the only sounds coming from Dean's frustrated struggle for freedom from his grandmother. When she did speak, it completely caught John off-guard. He had prepared for yelling and screaming and hysteria, nothing that even resembled the calm tone she spoke with.

"I told her not to marry you," she stated matter-of-factly, her tone giving no indication that she had just come from her daughter's funeral. It was cool and rational and unforgiving.

"I know," John admitted. His mother-in-law had never made any attempts to hide her disdain for her daughter's choice in a husband.

"I thought you'd at least have the decency to show up at her funeral." Her voice was slowly and steadily filling with anger and fury.

"Funeral?" John repeated blankly. The words barely registered in his mind. Nothing had seemed to register yet. It all seemed like such a surreal dream. Like he would wake up any second and see Mary lying next to him.

"Yes! Her funeral! The thing that any decent husband would have attended!"

A funeral? Hardly. An empty box buried six feet in the ground with a stone with her name over it. When in reality, Mary had never been anywhere near there. And now never would be. Sammy began to wail loudly.

"What funeral? Fires don't leave bodies. There was nothing there. You didn't bury Mary. You're buried an empty box and put her name on a stone," John angrily defended his actions.

"It's for closure!" his mother-in-law yelled.

"My wife is dead. And the thing that killed her is alive. Burying an empty coffin isn't closure."

She was stunned for a moment. As was he. Up until that moment, what John had seen had only haunted his thoughts. He never dared to say what he had seen until that moment. His mother-in-law unconsciouly loosened her grip on her grandchildren.

"Nothing killed her, John. It was an accident," she said letting another emotion besides anger pervade her voice.

"It wasn't," John protested. "It was murder."

"Who would want to kill Mary?"

"What. What would want to kill her? I don't know but whatever it is, I'm going to hunt it down and kill that son of a bitch," John resolved in that instant. He opened the back door of his car and tossed the few items in his hand on the floor. Dean had broken free and taken Sammy from his shocked grandmother's hands. He quickly ran to join his father and helped him strap Sammy in the carseat before driving away. Dean claimed the photo and the coloring book and John forgot about the journal for the time.

It laid forgotten in the car for weeks until John saw it after leaving from his first visit with Missouri. He carefully picked it up and turned it over in his hand. He scrambled for a pen, opened it to the first page, and wrote a single sentence.

_I went to Missouri and learned the truth._


End file.
